September 22, 2023 - Sen. Bob Menendez indicted on federal bribery charges

Two of the gold bars found at Menendez's house during a court-authorized search of the home.

Federal prosecutors are seeking to reclaim the property and wealth Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and others gained through the alleged schemes, including potentially by having him forfeit his home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and the 13 gold bars found in the property.

A forfeiture claim in the indictment also seeks a 2019 Mercedes-Benz convertible – which Menendez’s wife gushed about with a heart emoji over text message – as well as more than $550,000 seized by investigators from his home and safety deposit box. 

The gold bars that prosecutors seized include 11 one-ounce bars and two one-kilogram bars found during the June 2022 search of Menendez’s home. Prosecutors say that around that time, gold was worth $1,800 an ounce.

Menendez had searched online “how much is one kilo of gold worth” and “kilo of gold price” in the months before the gold was found in his home, the indictment adds.

The indictment alleges Menendez’s wife Nadine sold some of the gold to a jeweler in Manhattan before the June 2022 search, when the price of gold was more than $60,000 a kilogram, prosecutors say. 

Sen. Bob Menendez; his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, and the three New Jersey businessmen they were indicted alongside will appear in federal court at 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to the US attorney’s office. 

Menendez and his wife are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez presides over a hearing on Capitol Hill on January 26, 2023 in Washington, DC.

In the federal indictment, prosecutors accuse Sen. Bob Menendez of trying to sway the Biden administration’s choice for the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey to benefit one of the business associates and of pressuring the Department of Agriculture to protect a co-defendant’s business monopoly in Egypt.

The allegations form a core part of what prosecutors say was Menendez’s attempts to use his office as a US senator for the benefit of his business contacts.

Regarding the US attorney position, prosecutors say Menendez met with the eventual nominee to be the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, who is not named in the indictment, in late 2020. During that meeting, Menendez criticized an ongoing case against his now-co-defendant Fred Daibes. 

After the meeting, the US attorney candidate said he may need to recuse from the case, and for a time Menendez recommended a different lawyer for the top prosecutors job — someone Daibes “believed … would likely be sympathetic to him.”

Allegedly pressuring the Agriculture Department: In 2019, the US Department of Agriculture had contacted Egypt to object to it giving Menendez’s contact, Wael Hana, monopoly rights related to supplying halal meat to the US.

The indictment alleges that it was through this monopoly that Hana “could make good on the bribe payments” promised to Menendez and his wife – including through mortgage payments and $30,000 in payments to his wife’s business account – after failing to pay her in a “low-or-no-show job.” 

Hana met Menendez in his office along with others, including an Egyptian intelligence official, in May 2019, asking for help fending off the US agency’s opposition. The group went to a Washington, DC, steakhouse for dinner that evening, the indictment said.

Two days later, Menendez allegedly called an Agriculture Department official, asking them to stop opposing Hana’s venture.

US Sen. Bob Menendez rides in the Senate subway as he leaves the Senate chambers on February 16, in Washington, DC.

US Sen. Bob Menendez indicated he would fight the federal charges against him, saying “forces behind the scenes” are attempting to silence his voice, according to his statement Friday.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.

“For years, forces behind the scenes have repeatedly attempted to silence my voice and dig my political grave. Since this investigation was leaked nearly a year ago, there has been an active smear campaign of anonymous sources and innuendos to create an air of impropriety where none exists,” he said in the statement. 

“The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent. They have misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office. On top of that, not content with making false claims against me, they have attacked my wife for the longstanding friendships she had before she and I even met,” he added.

“Those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first-generation Latino American from humble beginnings could rise to be a U.S. Senator and serve with honor and distinction. Even worse, they see me as an obstacle in the way of their broader political goals,” he continued.

Menendez pointed to his work to repair his constituents’ trust in him and said, he remains “focused on continuing this important work” and that he “will not be distracted by baseless allegations.”

He ended by claiming that “the facts are not as presented,” and urged people to reserve their judgement, saying he is “confident that this matter will be successfully resolved once all of the facts are presented.”

Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, shows photos o

Federal prosecutors in the bribery case of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said the investigation is “very much ongoing” and called on the public and additional witnesses to come forward.

The official said that his office remains “firmly committed to rooting out public corruption without fear or favor and without any regard to partisan politics.”

More on the case: Menendez was charged on Friday with corruption-related offenses for the second time in 10 years. He and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.

Prosecutors allege the bribes included gold, cash, home mortgage payments, compensation for a “low-or-no-show job” and a luxury vehicle.

CNN’s Kara Scannell and Katelyn Polantz contributed reporting to this post.

US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York.

After laying out the indictment charges against Sen. Bob Menendez, Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, detailed why these were offenses.

“Constituent service is part of any legislator’s job. Sen. Menendez is no different. And as explained in the indictment, there are things that Sen. Menendez says he can do for his constituents and things that he says he cannot do. He put it all on his Senate website,” Williams said.

Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, according to prosecutors, received a range of lucrative bribes, including cash and gold bars as well as car and mortgage payments.

In 2019, according to court documents, Hana paid $23,000 to bring Nadine Arslanian Menendez’s mortgage payments current, allowing her to avoid foreclosure proceedings.

Hana and Uribe also allegedly helped Nadine Menendez buy a new Mercedes-Benz convertible if Sen. Menendez interfered in a New Jersey state prosecution – which, according to the indictment, he did.

Nadine Menendez allegedly thanked Uribe, who funded monthly payments for the car, over text message, writing: “You are a miracle worker who makes dreams come true I will always remember that.”

After federal authorities searched the Menendez home, Nadine Menendez wrote Uribe a check for $21,000 with a memo line reading “personal loan,” prosecutors say.

Around June 2019, Nadine Menendez also set up an entity in New Jersey called Strategic International Business Consultants, LLC so that she and her husband could receive bribe payments, prosecutors allege. Those payments included at least three $10,000 checks.

In 2021, Hana allegedly used money from his Halal meat company to order the Menendez’s “two exercise machines and an air purifier, among other items, collectively worth thousands of dollars,” according to court documents. 

After a meeting that same year between Sen. Menendez and an Egyptian official, Hana allegedly purchased 22 one-ounce gold bars each worth around $1,800. Investigators later found two of those gold bars when they searched Menendez’s house.

By early 2022, the Menendez’ had received additional payments from Hana including “hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks, cash, and gold.”

US Attorney Damian Williams is holding a news conference now on the indictment against New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.

Prosecutors allege the bribes included gold, cash, home mortgage payments, compensation for “low-or-no-show job” and a luxury vehicle.

Also charged are Will Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.

Around October 2021, Sen. Menendez and his wife Nadine met with multiple Egyptian officials on a trip to Egypt, including for a private dinner at the home of Egyptian Official-5.

Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars to use the senator’s position to benefit the government of Egypt, including providing sensitive US government information and secretly helping to steer military aid to Egypt, according to the federal indictment.

“Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value,” the indictment says.

According to the indictment, Menendez’s wife, Nadine – along with a friend and now co-defendant – introduced the senator to Egyptian intelligence and military officials. 

Menendez, as ranking member and then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had substantial influence over military contracts and aid, including to Egypt, who the indictment says was among the largest recipients of US military aid over the last several years.  

Over dinners and meetings with Egyptian officials, Menendez and his then-girlfriend and future wife promised to use his political power to facilitate US military sales and financing to Egypt in exchange for his wife to be placed on the payroll of one of the co-defendant’s companies for a “low-or-no-show job,” the indictment says. 

After one of these meetings, according to the indictment, Menendez asked the US State Department for highly sensitive information about how many people were serving at the US embassy in Egypt as well as their nationalities. 

Menendez later texted the breakdown of who was employed at the embassy to his then-girlfriend, who forwarded it to a co-defendant who sent the sensitive information to an Egyptian official.

The senator is also accused of disclosing non-public information about military aid to Egypt to individuals who passed the information onto Egyptian officials. Menendez also helped draft a letter on behalf of the government of Egypt “seeking to convince other U.S. Senators to release a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt.”

After being provided briefing materials passed along from the Egyptian government for requests for military financing and sales to the country, Menendez told his wife to pass along a message that he would “sign off this sale to Egypt today,” the indictment says.  

Menendez said the sale, totaling at least $99 million, included target practice rounds and 10,000 rounds of tank ammunition. 

“NOTE: These tank rounds are for tanks they have had for many years. They are using these in the Sinai for the counter-terrorism campaign,” he allegedly messaged. 

The message eventually made their way to an Egyptian official, who responded with a “thumbs up” emoji.

Searches of Sen. Bob Menendez’s home and safe deposit box that federal agents conducted in 2022 turned up nearly $500,000 in cash, including in envelopes inside jackets emblazoned with Menendez’s name.

Cash was found inside this jacket with Menendez's name.

Photos of piles of cash laying on top of a navy and a black jacket are included in the indictment.

Prosecutors say some of the envelopments had the fingerprints or DNA of one of the business contacts from whom Menendez is accused of taking bribes.

The federal investigators who searched Menendez’s home also found a “luxury vehicle paid for by [Jose] Uribe parked in the garage,” as well as home furnishings from other business contacts and gold bars.

A Mercedes-Benz Convertible Nadine Menendez purchased using a $15,000 down payment with a combination of cash, a credit card, and several checks, and taking out an automotive loan.

During a court-authorized search of the home, agents found over one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold bars in the home.